


Guide To Better Thieving and Other Literary Classics

by Chirp_Writes



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Adoption, Cultural Differences, F/M, Family Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Mentioned Cannibalism, how to raise a child in riften and shield them from organised crime, legate rikke is also there if you squint, racist nords get beaten up aww yiss, some thieves guild appreciation eyyooo, this is going to be some self-indulgent fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-12 09:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11159166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chirp_Writes/pseuds/Chirp_Writes
Summary: How many Bosmer does it take to pickpocket a sapphire?Only one stubborn one, but she gets caught, like, five times, and piles up a bounty worth more than the damn stone





	1. Helgen

“Next, the wood elf!” Elprilin steps forward, still a bit hazy from being knocked over the head, and dumped on a ragged little fucking cart after, so does not comprehend that the imperial is asking her for her name. She’s a bit dodgy with northern common on a good day too, anyway

“Hey! What did your mama call you?”

She gasps, and all she blurts out is a hurried and startled “Bunny”. A split second more is what she needs after that to put together what the expression actually meant, immediately blushes under muted golden skin, some Imperials in the execution squad are chuckling. Great, the last impression of her in her life is some little stupid tree-dweller with a dumb name. The rough, hatchet faced officer with the list in her hand raises one brow at her

“Bunny? I know you folks have fucked up names like this leaf and that root and shit, but Bunny, that’s something new…”

“No, no, that is what mother called me, but I am called Elprilin. Elprilin” she tries to hastily correct, but the damage is already done.

She goes by Bunny with friends, with anyone else at home, but these people are neither friends, nor anyone else from home, they do not need to know, should not know that, and she feels tears welling up, stingy and prickly in the corner of her eyes, from embarrassment. She knows it’s even funnier with how she wears her hair, that’s why some soldiers are still laughing quietly to themselves, she’s got two little buns on each side, the good old elf way, and how her brow ridge and pointy nose make her look like a worried rabbit, the small brown ones back in Valenwood, the ones that even hold their hands at their chest when resting, tiny anxious little mer they look like, oh fucking trees, why did she have to come here, across the mountains, why did she listen to that shady Rosehollow kid, she just wants to go home, just wants to go home, just … 

“Spell it, would you!” The voice of the officer startles her back to reality

“Don’t bother with it Rikke, they all gon’ get their heads chopped of soon anyway!”


	2. Windhelm - One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some good old lockpicking, fistfights and a hasty proposal

Elprilin goes down to breakfast at the Candlehearth hall last, pockets pleasantly full with knick-knacks, cheese, apples, some loose coin and even a deep red garnet she found in the other rooms. It’s incredible what folks leave lying around. Well, and in some cupboards. Some locked cupboards, with older type locks her too cold (she does not remember being this cold ever, ever in her short life) and rigid fingers can still easily pick. But seriously, some folks are just incredibly, laughably careless.

And there he is in the common hall, reeking of mead: the man in brown ragged clothes she had first seen when setting foot first in this frozen fucking city, cornering a Dunmer woman with another, trying to intimidate someone probably a good century older than him.

“Why do you hate the dark elves?” Bunny asks. Her brow ridge is set deeper with concern, after venturing the Grey Quarter in the past couple days, running errands, helping people out, scraping together some gold to pay her bounties after some sailors and shiny-shields called “Guards!” when she combed through their pockets. West wind chill them.

“They're parasites. They're living in our city, under our protection, but what do they do for us? Nothing! I know the High King invited them here, but he didn't ask me or anyone else first. Maybe he should have”

Bunny feels her nose bridge joining in to the wrinkling, upper lip curling in disgust and anger. She remembers Ambarys, resorting to selling skooma from under the counter to keep things afloat, and his nails bitten to the flesh in nervous, mindless moments; Aval, with his sharp little beard, and “resourceful” stock, selling finer things that he could ever afford for himself; she remembers Faryl, and his frostbit ankles, more-than-normally-blue fingertips, struggling with the permafrost and his stubborn Nord master; Idesa, raising another family’s children so once, if all goes well, so very well, she can think of herself first. And she remembers Revyn, scared and wide-eyed, with his soft black halo of hair, begging him to return one suspicious ring to the owner, since a simple reporting to the guards could cause the closing of his shop, and him freezing to death on the slippery stone steps of the Gray Quarter with some rotten cabbages, evicted and septimless. And Bunny raises a bony fist, and Bunny hits.

The nose of Stone-Fist cracks oh so satisfying, she might have gotten some blood droplets on her fresh red apron dress she found in a well-off Riften household, but she does not stop. She might be yelling, it might be the other guests, the only thing Elprilin is focused on is making sure the man has no face left he can spew hatred from anymore.

The soft spoken old Nord with the scaled armour is the one who finally touches her shoulder. Bruised, aching knuckles get lowered, and Bunny cannot wipe her grin, looking at Rolff Stone-Fist crouching on the ground before her feet, struggling to rise.

 

She scrambles in her pockets and knapsack, as running down icy steps, knowing she had it somewhere there. She saw the nice colours, the circle pendants interlinked in the big, incense-smelling temple of whatever lady these people here worship (her statue looked calm and offering a hug, and daedras don’t offer hugs, so the lady cannot be that bad) and she just had to slide it into her skirt folds, wrapping it around her fingers to prevent it from clinking. The priest couple looked teeth-rottingly sweet together, and were oddly comforting after being almost-executed and almost-carbonified by a fucking dragon, so she hanged around them long enough to remember the most important bit: the trinket thing means marriage.

Long thief-fingers find the necklace, pull it out, pull it on, it gets stuck on one bun, she grimaces and finally tugs it into place. Bunny still huffs and puffs from her fight, running through Windhelm smiling, happy, like she last run through her home trees when she was but a gangly, lanky teen mer. All she has on is her now blood-spattered wool dress, thick, but not enough, she did not bother with a cape after her victory.

Almost breaking a leg on the steep steps down to the Grey Quarter, and scrambling up the steps leading to his shop, Bunny barges into Sadri’s Used Wares. Revyn is startled up from bookkeeping, trying to take in what he sees. A flushed, blood-covered Bosmer, out in the Windhelm winter in nothing but one layer, snow in dishevelled buns, with a huge amulet of Mara and an even bigger smile on.

“Look at you…” is all he can get out

“I… It’s… It’s … not my blood, I know, I got into a fight, the Nord in the cap who says racist shit, I was at the Candleahearth …” Revyn gives a headshake, and Elprilin stops

“I mean, wearing an Amulet of Mara. Are you saying you’re available?” and his smile is already putting small crinkles into the corner of his eyes, not yet matching Bunny’s, but on the way there.

“Interested in me” she intends it to be a question, but damn Nordic common word orders get in her way as usual “are you?” She knows how foolish this is, she is, they are, meeting just a few days ago, but all that kept popping into her head while beating Rolff to a pulp was a certain pair of red eyes looking at her proudly, and hey, what else says true love more than that, so to Oblivion with everything

“You are pleasant company, more than pleasant. And what about you? Would you...be interested in a life together?”

“More than pleasant, am I? I’m also more than interested” Bunny laughs, and there it is, an equally huge, stupid grin on Revyn’s face, and nothing else matters there and then, the tension that was suffocating in the shop melts in a blink. The two mer are laughing into their first shared kiss, clumsy and not yet used to each other, bumping pointy little noses in the joy of it, gold fingers interlacing with silver ones.

“Good. The two of us then. All of Skyrim should get ready to stand aside” Revyn sighs a bit later, while they catch their breaths, foreheads leaning against each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so for the proposal dialogue I mainly used the original lines from the game, bc I am a lazy writer


	3. Windhelm - Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More domestic assholery, with added cultural confusion and man-eating trees (also, if it doesn't come through, these two are fucking broke)

“Do you want to take my last name, dearest? Or should I take yours?” They already agreed where to live (Revyn’s run-down little back room in the store), who cooks (Revyn, if Bunny is out with errands, Bunny, on new shipment days), and whether Bunny should pass on questionable shinies to her new husband to sell (absolutely not, keep that shit for Niranye, but he will gladly keep anything with amethysts to himself), all that remains is the gruesome official details. 

“Oh no, I do not have one” Bunny says, as if it was self-evident

“Then what do you have?”

“My name? Just, my name?”

“But, how do you know who is in your family?”

“You don’t know who is your family without the names?” 

“Of course, I know my family, what do you take me for? But you have your house, that is your family as well” 

“Your house? I never knew Dunmers felt connected to their houses! This is amazing! No one ever understood when I told them about ours, and how it helped to raise me and my siblings!” deep brown eyes light up with a spark of excitement, at one more opportunity to connect with her husband

“So if your house is so important, why don’t you have a name for it? That you bear?” Revyn has a few extra forehead ridges now from the deep concentration, trying to put together and understand things

“They do not, it’s… it’s just not how things are, you cannot give your house a name, and the house cannot tell you its name, it’s just… weird and disrespectful and wrong” The people of this land do not understand a thing about trees. Bunny clearly remembers the day she first set foot into Riften, the whole town built of dead trees, and everywhere she looked, there were so many corpses, people walking on them, all the walls, the roofs, everything dead. She cried for four nights, walked on tiptoes for a week, and still has nightmares about it. 

“So you respect your ancestors so much, you cannot name them, then?”

“Why couldn’t you? For example, there was great-great-grandmother Cirwwaenyl, we talk about her a lot, she was great with healing ailments, could heal broken bones and the house gained a whole lot of nutrients from her, the whole thing grew like ten feet after we fed her to the roots…”

“Dearest… Dearest, are you sure we are talking about the same thing?” Revyn interrupts, holding two hands up. He knew his knowledge of anything outside Morrowind was outrageous, but this conversation highlights just how little he really knows

“Houses? And whether they have names?”

“Yeah, but what do you mean by “house”?” he knows he might be onto something here, just has to keep asking the right questions to clear up their confusion

“The house? We live in? The tree?”

“The ones that apparently eat mer…” Revyn has to admit, that sounds scary, and like something out of a ghost story told to tiny mer to scare them into sleep, but if his wife says it's true, then he won't be the one to argue

“They do not eat mer, they eat corpses, and only when we give those to them as a gift to express gratitude and make them grow, there is a difference!” 

“So you are talking about some kind of symbiotic, sentient trees that your people live in, correct?” 

“Why, aren’t you?” 

“The houses of Morrowind, you see…” Revyn chuckles, searches for words “it’s like, a clan, the siblings of your siblings, and their siblings, and people you have never met, but had some old, old, common ancestor with, and you have the same second name, so you are somehow closer to them, and help each other if the need arises”

“Then what do you live in?” Now it is Bunny with a few extra lines between brows “You have living-in-house, and people-with-the-same-ancestors-house? And the two are not the same?” she talks with long pauses, as she pieces together all the information, and tries to explain a concept so foreign to her, it hurts her head

“No, they are not, you got the hang of them” both laugh, quietly, huddled close together under the down blankets to get some extra heat, one mer raised on hot ashlands, the other in humid forests, different from each other in so many aspects, but drawn closer together in being mer among men

“I want to take your house name then, if I can” Bunny breathes

“Elprilin Sadri” he uses her real name, rare occasion, he only learnt it when Maramal called Bunny both names at their wedding back then

“Got a nice ring to it” kind of like having a small piece of Revyn with her, wherever she goes. Anyone, who knows her name, will know the two of them are together. She mouths it to herself a couple more times, contently

“It sure does. I have to write to father soon that we have a new member of the renowned House Sadri” and with this, he drags Bunny closer in a hug, burrowing his face in the crook of her neck, thinking all official business is finally done around their marriage. Bunny sighs, pushing her back a bit more firmly against him, cozying in for the night as well. She realizes an inch away from deep sleep that she forgot to ask whether Revyn would like to be given to the trees or eaten when he dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S.: Revyn would prefer to be cremated, thank you very much, grow some ash yams on him if you want to. Also, the cannibalism (and deep-valenwood bosmer being freaked out by using wood) thing is legit canon, the bosmer section on the Skyrim wikia is a trip, believe me.


	4. Windhelm - Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some good old classic hurt-comfort, in the physical sense of it

Their wedding night is just as uncommon as their courtship (non-existent) and engagement (lasting a whooping 38 hours). Mainly because Bunny almost got beaten and stabbed to death by three hired tugs in front of the store’s door in the first hour of it. 

“Did they just attack you?” Revyn is fuming, as he dotes around a seated Elprilin with various potions and ointments, stopping bleeding, trying to minimize bruises and swelling, checking for cuts or anything broken

“Well, not just attack me, I found a contract on one of them” Because of course she fumbled through pockets, and might have pulled off some nicer boots or helmets after she managed to put enough arrows through all three of them. She did not gather the usual bits of meat though, already learnt that the people of Skyrim give you scary stares for that. 

“A contract?! From who? Why? Were you in someone’s pockets again?” Obviously she was, Revyn seems like he cannot decide whether he is angrier at Bunny, or whoever she pickpocketed and planned an overtly cruel revenge on her “Did you got a bounty on your head? We can afford it if you sell their armour, I can go out and get it off of them, you just rest here”

“No, no bounty, it was clearly self-defence” Elprilin shakes her head, then freezes and grimaces, when torn muscles protest “Shit”

“Drink one more. It’s okay” A red bottle is held to her lips, protests and suggestions that they can just reduce swelling with snow are culled quickly by a stern nod of Revyn. He can restock, he can scrape together some more septims, he can always ask for late payment at the apothecary. Bunny makes a face, as she feels the healing of weeks, a month, being sped up to minutes, tissue regrowing, bones and joints popping audibly, an ankle moving on its own accord as it twists back into place. A hiss escapes from her cracked lips, as a rib starts to reknit. “I know, I know” Revyn whispers, as he pulls her into a loose, careful hug “Can you stand?” A shrug. “Alright, love, you don’t have to. Put your arm over my shoulder. Good, like that, you got this. Hold on a bit, will you? I’m going to lift you in three, alright?” he counts, Bunny takes a sharp inhale, and she is scooped up from the stool, shakily holding onto her husband’s neck 

 

Lying in bed comfortably together would be a challenge by default, not to mention when one of them has just been heavily beaten. No matter the potions, Elprilin is still sore and aching. She tries to get a bit more comfortable, but something got cracked or torn, and her hips just don't respond. Let's out a frustrated sigh, briefly thanks the trees she has someone to take care of her “Help me turn. I cannot move my hips” The other elf complies, then twists on his elbows to fumble through the pile of medicine on the bedside table. 

“That's not good. Some balm on that? It says it is … ash hopper jelly and rock warbler egg, should be fine for you” Bunny feels a warm smile on her face, he does not only nurse her back to health, but makes sure nothing plant based is used, Y’ffre bless him. The balm warms up quickly on her skin, even though the room is chilly. She feels the muscles loosening up, the pain melting away where Revyn’s fingers pass, must be some extra stuff worth its weight in gold. And she is getting slathered in it. He taps a finger at the hem of her smalls, where the long curve of her hip is covered, requesting access “Can I?”

“Be my guest” Revyn takes a new scoop out of the jar, palm moving in a languid circle on her side, dipping slowly, slowly ever lower. First, just the fingertips dip under the waistband, following muscles and tendons. Then, more and more follows, the Dunmer reaches the hip joint, splays warm, slick fingers on it, resting them there, lets the healing balm seep in, fix the damage done by iron and fists. Bunny sighs at the feeling, burrows deeper into the blankest, pressing against the other. Then she perks up as she feels a finger travelling towards her inner thigh “I don’t have any bruises there” she whispers with a smile, acting mock-scandalized

“The question is, would you like some?” Revyn whispers back, voice hiding laughter. Bunny twists around with more ease than before, crinkles sparkly eyes at him, like a cat 

“Got enough for tonight, myself. However, if you think the night lacks some, I can always leave some on you” she offers, banter always came natural to the two of them “can’t say I ignore my husband’s wishes” 

“I mostly wish for you to heal as fast as you can. It was stupid enough of you to steal knickknacks from someone you shouldn’t have, don’t add to it now” he eases the weight of his words with a soft kiss to one straight brow. Yes, that was a dumb decision, but she never held a sapphire before in her hands, and she just had to “How about we take it slow tonight?” Bunny mmhm-s back contently, kisses her husband. That sounds good, that sounds perfect. Slow, and warm, and easy on her achy body. They have all the time in Tamriel. She falls asleep in a mellow haze, all pain gone, grey, balm-covered fingers still drawing circles and spirals on her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ummm, this is supposed to happen before chp. 3, but got edited second, so pls overlook the non-linear continuity
> 
> I am also debating whether to write them doing the frick-frack *wiggles eyebrows*


	5. Riften - One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Found families, self-made families, guild families and some problems regarding the merging of them

Bunny is fuming as she rushes through the market in Riften. Sure, moving here was better for her, closer to the Guild, especially with all the ruckus that’s been going down lately with Mercer, Karliah, and the Nightingales. The Guild needs her, and she needs those shiny septims clinking together in her coin purse after every successful heist. 

It did not matter to Revyn – selling a wide selection of wares will always provide a livelihood, no matter where one ends up in Skyrim. He furrows a brow at organized crime, but quietly enjoys the protection Elprilin means for his business. If looking the other way, and asking fewer questions than usual is the price to pay for not owing any protection fee to the Guild and escaping Windhelm’s slums, well, he is more than happy to pay it. 

But living in Riften is terribly, extremely, very no good for a child. A child they had, together. Not biologically, though, mixed mer pregnancies are notoriously difficult to carry to term, especially with Bunny regularly getting burned, beaten, frozen, and so on during her adventures. They decided on adopting, and still keeping that nirnroot-based powder Ingun invented on the bedside table, to prevent even the probability of a miscarriage. 

It was around two weeks ago the couple finally took in a scrawny Imperial boy, called Samuel, from the once-notorious Honorhall Orphanage. 

And it was exactly around two weeks it took for the Guild, and a certain member of it to find the boy. Poor thing was so excited and happy to tell Bunny about a certain Mister Brynjolf, and how he promised to teach him some neat things when he is a bit older (because the boy thrives to be useful, like all Skyrim orphans, used to appeal to logic more than the emotions of future adopters), and got equally taken aback by the sudden spark of pure fury in Elprilin’s eyes. 

It took an hour for both of them to calm down Samuel from his almost-panick-attack, tip-toeing around not mentioning the Guild and assuring him that yes, they still do want him, no, he did not do anything wrong, no, he will not be beaten, starved, or any of the fuckery Grelod the Kind employed to torture the kids (there was a reason Bunny killed the hag, but Samuel does not need to know), and no, they would never, ever send him back to the Orphanage, like it happened to one boy there, with one of those fancy double names. Not even if he breaks something, not even if he burns the house down, damn, not even if he burns the town down. 

That is why Bunny is about to have a talk with Brynjolf now. A Talk, with a capital T. She felt many ways of anger before: anger as a daughter, anger as a member of her village, as a sister, as a mer, as a woman, as a thief, as a child, as a youngling, as an outsider. But she has never felt anger as a mother before. She has to admit, it is quite the thing, could get used to it, she feels like she can possibly strangle a bear with her hands, if the bear happens to have a thin enough neck her fingers can close around it. Right now, Brynjolf is about to have the luck to substitute said bear. 

The wooden floor of the Ragged Flagon shakes under her steps as Bunny enters “You leave Samuel alone!” she pronounces the name with a heavy accent, Samu-El, rhymes with Auri-El the way it rolls of her tongue. 

Brynjolf, the bastard, knows he is the one addressed, of course he does, points innocently at himself “Me, lass? I was meaning no harm…” he counts on his slow, warm drawl to have a calming effect on the mer, buttering her up a bit, talking his way out of this, like many other conflicts before. 

She takes none of his shit. “You know very well what you meant, and don’t you “lass” me” if Brynjolf knows a thing or two about manipulating people, so does Bunny. She climbs into Brynjolf’s face, uncomfortably close. Stares way too hard with those huge eyes, with no visible whites. Makes a man want to do anything, just to get away from that gaze, works like a wonder every single time. “Get any member of my family in trouble, and you will be thrown out of this Guild faster than you could say Twilight Sepulchre, understood?” She all but hisses, Brynjolf would bet some serious money that her buns really got flattened back to her head, like a cat’s ears. The man can muster a tight little nod “This stands for Revyn, this stands for Samuel, this stands for anyone added in the future, no exceptions. I am a thief, not my husband, not my son, I get caught, I get beaten up, I pay the bounty, I made my deal with Nocturnal. Leave them the fuck alone, understand?” sounds less like a question and more of a threat, Brynjolf doesn’t debate the answer for long either

“Aye, boss” 

Then all of a sudden, with the Talk being over and done with, the elf’s face slips into a smile “And come on, Bryn, the boy’s an Imperial. Did you lose your eye for talent? We all know who has the best hands in this shithole” Brynjolf, still intimidated, almost starts listing off the names, Bunny, Vex, Sapphire, and then Niruin, and maybe… “definitely not human men. And he’s a terrible sneak, if his performance in hide-and-seek is telling. He’s not Guild material, but he will make a fine tradesman or a warrior one day” it’s the whole package on her face: motherly pride, bittersweet acceptance, that all-knowing squint she started doing lately, since she came back from Whiterun, and some healthy schadenfreude over her clumsy human son and Brynjolf’s misjudgement. 

“An honest, fucking job” he smirks back at Bunny

“An honest, fucking job” the elf echoes back

“No thief dynasty for you then” 

“Nay, I’ll leave that for you” now they are back to equals, just two thieves bickering. In a few minutes, a seat gets pulled over, a wine opened up, then the minutes turn into an hour, in joins Delvin, Bunny has some news of his brother, Delvin tells some old stories in return, then arrives Vex and her mean, stabby little comments, that’s how she shows love, then Vekel yells that dinner stew is on, two tables are pushed together so Tonilia and that new guy can fit there too, there are stories and banter and gossip. 

Bunny sits with one leg pulled up, chin resting on knee, enjoying the hum (and yell) of her cozy little family, as Tonilia put it once, long, long time ago. Next time, she might bring down Revyn, he would enjoy the company, she muses. And Samuel, he would enjoy the cistern, that kid must be half fish, hellbent on swimming in the Riften canals. They would love this. Bunny softly chuckles, she loves those two idiots so much. 

“Too much wine, boss?” Vex spots her giggling to herself and does not miss the opportunity. To be honest, Bunny would start to worry if the other skipped the snark just once

“Just thinking about merging my two families” No matter how hard Vex stares back, there is no further explanation, just that damn squint-grin, simultaneously cheeky and wise

She finally gives up and raises two white blonde brows, only visible because of the torchlight, and concludes her diagnosis “Too much wine, it is then”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should she have a kid? ummmmm... does she have a kid? yea, she does now  
> also, i just love the thieves guild so much, and a hex on bethesda for not making anyone marriable there

**Author's Note:**

> P.S.: I'm always a slut for comments


End file.
